Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Julie Devall" <krena_li_mara AT hotmail.com>]

Dear Rolf,

In case my posting was not clear (as I sense from subsequent posts), the 
suggestion is that there is an alternative to the traditional notion of 
"prophetic perfect".  The passage references an event which is past - the 
vision.  I used the grammar as a jumping off point, showing the mental 
gymnastics that must be done to understand a "future referring" perfect.  
Perhaps my (instructor's) suggestion requires more gymnastics, but it 
doesn't require a tortured grammar, nor some glimpse into the brain of the 
author, just an understanding of the narrative frame of Isaiah.

Now taking the perfects as simple past yields two (or three) possible 
conclusions:
1) Vision (as mode) predicting future events.  Now ask me how I would 
translate it, or how it should be translated for a mass audience, and I will 
not have any idea.  But that is a discussion for another day.
2) Liz's suggestion -Narrative about the events surrounding the time of 
Isaiah, i.e., Tiglath-Pileser III...
3) Or, some combination thereof...  (Hey, I grew up in the PoMo generation, 
we can all be right...;)

Hope I clarified my original post,

Julie :)

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